Steelers @ Eagles - Pregame Thoughts
Photo via NFL Pro.
The Steelers are on the road today against our in-state rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles. The twittersphere has circulated the hell out of that stat about the Steelers not having a win in Philadelphia since the 1960s. We have an opportunity to get right in the City of Brotherly Love, but we will have to do so without some key guys including George Pickens, Larry Ogunjobi, and DeShon Elliot, all of which are ruled out for this matchup.
I’ll be honest with yinz…I came into this week not feeling good about this matchup at all. We saw in the first half of last week’s game against the Browns how badly our offense can stall without George Pickens. I love what Scotty Miller was able to do in that game, and he’s someone we haven’t seen much of since the beginning of the season. Mike Williams had that awesome one handed catch on the sideline, and I’m hopeful that he will see the number of snaps he plays increase significantly over the next couple weeks. Calvin Austin III has been one of our best offensive weapons, at times, and has clearly developed a good rapport with Russell Wilson. All that is great, but these guys are going to have a tough time making plays against this Eagles secondary with George Pickens sidelined. The Eagles invested in their secondary in the 2024 draft taking two awesome young corners in Cooper DeJean from Iowa and Quinyon Mitchell from Toledo. I was VERY high on Cooper DeJean around the time of the NFL draft, and even included him on my NFL Draft day one wishlist. I also went as far as texting my friend, who’s an Eagles fan, congratulating him on the fact that they drafted DeJean, because I think he’s going to be a great player, and he’s off to a hell of a start. Those rookies are awesome, and they’re more than capable of doing their job(s) in the Eagles’ zone-heavy defense…which is unfortunate, because I haven’t even mentioned the likes of Big Play Darius Slay, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, or Reed Blankenship. This team is as solid as they come on the back end of their defense and, to no fault of his own, OC Arthur Smith probably shoulders a bulk of the pressure for our offense coming into this game, because he’s going to have to scheme these guys open if we’re going to have any hope of sustaining drives. Either that, or a Najee Harris masterclass, and the Eagles’ front seven is pretty damn good too, so I wouldn’t necessarily say that I think Naj is breaking any records this week either. This is going to be a really tough game for our offense, but we’re at a point in the season where there’s going to be nothing but tough games for the rest of the year, so we better buckle up.
The matchup on the other side of the ball will be a lot of fun to watch; a true Goliath on Goliath matchup. Obviously, when you think about the Eagles offense, the first name that’s going to jump out at you is Saquon Barkley. He’s currently on pace to break the single-season rushing record set by Eric Dickerson back in the 1980s. Granted, the 17-game season is still pretty new to the league, so you will have to take his potential record-breaking season with a bit of a grain of salt. Nonetheless, he’s clearly found his home in Philadelphia, and he should be pretty unanimously recognized as the best running back in football this year. DeShon Elliot, who will not play today, has been tremendous against the run, so his absence is pretty significant in my opinion. We’ll probably see a lot of Damontae Kazee roaming the field, with Minkah Fitzpatrick in the box helping against the run, kinda similar to how Minkah was used last season. Kazee loves to attack the ball, which could be really good for us, and really bad for us. We shall see. I fully expect us to load up the box all game long and force Jalen Hurts to throw the ball. Thankfully, a guy like Joey Porter Jr. has a tendency to step up in a big way when he gets to line up against legit WR1s like A.J. Brown. I trust our secondary to hold up, and from there it will be up to the defense to create some pressure and force mistakes. Still, the Eagles and the Steelers are two of the most run-heavy teams in the league; especially in the second half of games, so Barkley is going to get a majority of our attention, and rightfully so.
As my week progressed and I was watching some of the Eagles previous games, and of course watching Hard Knocks on Tuesday Night, I found myself becoming more and more confident going into this game. Then, I loaded up my FanDuel account and saw that the Steelers were 5.5 point dogs in this game. Really? The Eagles are 6 points better than the Steelers? I don’t think so, even if the game IS in Philly. The Eagles are healthier than we are right now, and for that reason they should be the favorites to win the game. However, when you’re watching the in-season Hard Knocks, or the Sights and Sounds of the game, or the player media availabilities, you find that this Steelers team is a group of guys that truly believes in one another, and thinks that they’re competing for a Super Bowl, and they ARE by the way. They can see what Vegas thinks about them. They can see what the general public is saying about this game. So, you take a group of guys that includes future Hall of Famers like Russell Wilson, T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, and Minkah Fitzpatrick, and you tell THOSE guys that the Eagles are (fairly) heavy favorites in this one? I don’t know, man. This Eagles team let the lowly Panthers hang around for quite a while last week. Mike Tomlin is having his Coach of the Year (potentially) moment, and it just seems disrespectful to make him a 6 point underdog in any game against any opponent this year. So, I would take the Steelers +5.5 all day, and I did. That means I think this game will be close, and when you have Hall of Famers on your squad, close games turn into wins. Go Steelers.
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